


And That's The Tea

by itsjacobperalta



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming
Genre: F/M, Mostly MJ's thought process, no ffh spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 15:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19832917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsjacobperalta/pseuds/itsjacobperalta
Summary: An exploration of MJ realizing she has a crush on one Peter Parker (and the realization that he might like her too...)





	And That's The Tea

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a 300 word drabble I was trying to write 1-2 sentences to wrap up... then it turned into a 1200 word fic so here we are.

Everyone has pet peeves. Quirks. Idiosyncrasies. Whatever you want to call them, everyone’s got them. Michelle Jones is aware she probably has more than most people. She’s not a big fan of people in general so it makes sense that most things people do would be a source of irritation. Overuse of exclamation points. Sending eight texts back to back when one, longer, two sentence text would do. Being late or not showing up at all. Pun T-shirts.

For MJ, there is a distinct difference between pet peeves and someone who is legitimately a bad person. People talking too fast is one thing. People who think racism, homophobia and misogyny are okay aren’t worth her time unless it’s at a protest (and she does go to quite a few).

She could go on and on about her different pet peeves. She generally used them as an excuse to not get close to people. (“He drinks his coffee too loud. I can’t be his friend”)

But somehow, MJ realized that there was one person who seemed to be the embodiment her peeves - Peter Parker. He always talked like he had just had 15 cups of coffee. He wore almost exclusively science pun shirts. He was late to almost as much stuff as he missed and his excuses were all laughably bad. She would frequently pick up her phone only to see a string of no less than 15 texts from Peter all about the same thing and all with too many exclamation points. Sometimes he would send her three texts in a row that were nothing but exclamation points.

By all accounts, he should be her least favorite person for the sole reason that he was a walking list of her pet peeves.

But he wasn’t.

In fact, he was almost the opposite.

She wouldn’t go as far as to say he was her favorite person, if only because Michelle wasn’t ready to admit that to herself. For someone who prided themselves on their self-control and observation skills, her lack of awareness as Peter Parker became not only her friend but one of her favorite humans was nothing short of alarming.

But he was.

From his messy curls to his constant fidgeting to his inability to string a coherent sentence together let alone keep a secret (hello, Spiderman), this dork had wormed his way into a place in her heart that she didn’t even know existed and took up residence.

And now she cared.

About him.

About his well-being.

About Star Wars, and LEGO, and other lame stuff that he liked and it was _gross_. 

She didn’t even mean to but evidently, caring about people means you listen when they talk about things they care about and you retain the information.

She has no idea what she could ever use the amount of useless information that she has catalogued on Peter Parker for but like it or not, she has it. It’s not like someone’s ever going to pop up and say “quick! There’s been an emergency and the only thing that will help is knowing what Peter Parker’s favorite and most-used emoji is” (its the gasping cat emoji for reasons that are beyond even her. Second in line is the spider emoji because he’s an idiot who is about as subtle as the bus he caught with his barehands)

It’s the downside of being very observant - having a crush and suddenly knowing _everything._ She has this wealth of information that she just sits on, occasionally adding or amending as needed, resigned to just wait out this annoying crush on her nerdy, backpack-losing, easily distracted, flakey friend until hopefully it goes away.

(It doesn’t)

It’s not till several months into MJ’s awareness of the crush that she realizes that it may not be one-sided and… she’s not the only one who’s been observing the other.

She and Ned are at Peter’s for homework night when May brings in snacks. She tosses juice pouches to the boys and hands Michelle a mug of steaming tea.

“Here you go, Michelle. You prefer tea, right? We picked some up at the store over the weekend.” May said it like it was nothing, but MJ saw Peter’s ears start to turn red as he intently focused on his textbook.

“This is great, May. Thank you.” Michelle smiled and glanced at the little tag that was attached to the tea bag. “This is actually my favorite type too.”

“Oh, is it?” May looked delighted. “Peter picked it out. I wondered why he was so determined to —“

“Thanks, May!” Peter cut in, the rest of his face now matching his ears, as he looked pointedly at his aunt. She left the room, leaving the tray of snacks and an awkward silence.

“Thanks for the tea, Parker.” MJ said after what felt like an eternity. Normally silence didn’t bother her but this one was torture. “Though, I don’t remember ever telling you I prefer this brand.”

“You…You didn’t.. I just— I noticed it, the logo, on the tag a few times.” He was tripping over his words so badly, she was worried he might hurt himself. “And I just — well, I figured if I saw it a few times, it must mean you like it so… so that’s what I got. When we were at the store.”

What neither of them said, though MJ’s positive they both knew it, is that this type of tea isn’t sold in a lot of places in Queens, or even New York really. As far as she knows, there’s only one tea shop in Manhattan that sells it. So no matter how he managed to get it, Peter Parker had put in a lot of work for a tea she had never talked with him about. And Peter was a generous guy, sure, but she would bet he had never gone to such lengths to get Ned a…whatever Ned likes that isn’t available at the corner store.

She didn’t know what to do with this information, other than sip the tea and continue to digest the revelation. Even as Peter and Ned continued on with the calculus homework, Michelle sat on the floor, staring into her mug, a warmth growing in her stomach that had nothing to do with the hot tea she’d just taken a sip of.

Peter was paying attention and retaining information about her just like she was doing with him. The only difference was Peter was putting his knowledge to use (good use too, if she was being honest. She really did love this tea). She looked up from the tea, and caught Peter staring at her. They made eye contact and he flushed, looking away.

MJ smiled to herself: she didn’t need to be an expert in Peter Parker to know what that meant. She had a crush on this boy who was a walking, talking, swinging list of her pet peeves and it seemed that he had one on her too.

She downed the rest of her tea and straightened her shoulders, gearing up to jump back into the discussion on their homework.

Maybe dating Peter Parker would be a good way to put her knowledge of him to use…

_Well…,_ she mused, _only one way to find out._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. Please review to share any and all thoughts! I love reading them


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